VANCOUVER - There is no way to eliminate all danger for Canadian military trainers in Afghanistan after the country's combat mission ends there this summer, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Saturday.

There are risks for everyone who goes to Afghanistan -- and that includes soldiers, civilian workers and journalists, he said.

"We will minimize the risk to them but we can't eliminate them. That's what being in the military is all about. We are very proud that people are willing to do these things for our country," Harper told reporters after a campaign rally.

Harper was on a swing through in British Columbia, on the same day as a suicide attack that killed 10 people in eastern Afghanistan.

Five NATO and four Afghan soldiers, along with an interpreter were killed Saturday when a Taliban sleeper agent walked into a meeting of NATO trainers and Afghan troops at a Forward Operating Base in the eastern province of Laghman.

That followed Friday's attack when a suicide bomber impersonating a policeman blew himself up inside Kandahar's police headquarters, killing the province's top law enforcement officer.

Those attacks, as well as Harper's comments, underscored the dangers that Canadians soldiers will continue to face as combat operations in Kandahar end this summer and move to a training mission. Up to 950 Canadian military trainers will teach Afghan security forces for the next three years.

Canadian trainers will be centred in and around the capital, Kabul, and perhaps in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif, where militants recently stormed a United Nations compound killing a dozen workers.

"It will be behind the wire. Obviously there is significantly less risk to our military personnel there ... but are there still risks? Yes of course there are still risks," Harper said.

The Liberals support the training mission, one of the few issues the country's two main political parties seem to agree on.

Canada's participation in two wars -- Afghanistan and the UN-sanctioned air campaign in Libya -- has not been a major topic of discussion during the federal election campaign. Harper was asked about the risks to trainers by journalists travelling with his campaign.

"We are very fortunate," Harper said. "Generations of young men and women have been willing to serve their country, have been willing to voluntarily join the Canadian military and go and do these kinds of missions, not just to protect the interests of our country, but of their fellow human beings."

Several dozen anti-war protesters greeted Harper later Saturday outside a rally in Burnaby, B.C.

The organizers said they were frustrated by the lack of open debate in the election campaign about Canada's involvement in Afghanistan.

"Afghanistan was mentioned a couple of times in the leaders debates but it has not come up seriously as an issue," said Derrick O'Keefe, co-chair of the Vancouver's peace coalition. "Harper only answers five questions a day so almost no one has had a chance to ask him about Afghanistan."

O'Keefe said the Liberals don't want to talk about the war either because they helped the government keep troops in Afghanistan.